Elijah Craig

Elijah Craig

Elijah Craig (1738/1743 – May 18, 1808) was a Baptist preacher in Virginia, who became an educator and capitalist entrepreneur in the area of Virginia that later became the state of Kentucky. He has sometimes, although rather dubiously,^[1][2][3][4] been credited with the invention of bourbon whiskey.

Early life and education

Craig was born in Orange County, Virginia in 1738, the 5th child of Polly Hawkins and Taliaferro or Toliver Craig, Sr. Converted by David Thomas in 1764, Elijah Craig soon began holding meetings in his tobacco barn.^[5] In 1766, he convinced David Read to travel from North Carolina to baptize members of the new congregation, including himself. His older brother Lewis and younger brother Joseph Craig also became Baptist preachers.^[6] In 1768 Lewis was imprisoned with John Waller, James Childs, James Reed and William Marsh in the Fredericksburg jail for several weeks.^[7] In 1771 Elijah Craig was ordained and became the pastor of Blue Run church, halfway between Barboursville and Liberty Mills, Virginia. He was jailed at least twice for preaching without the required Virginia license from the Anglican Church. In 1774, the convention of independent Baptists designated Elijah Craig and John Waller Apostles (missionaries) to evangelize north of the James River.^[8]

Although Virginia adopted the principle of freedom of religion in its Declaration of Rights in 1776, Baptists still faced persecution from some elements of the Anglican religious establishment during the early statehood period, particularly when they preached to mixed congregations of freemen and slaves, white and black. Moreover, the Anglican Church (re-established as the Episcopal Church after the American Revolution) received subsidies. Thus Craig became politically active as the legislative liaison of the general convention and general association to Virginia's legislature as well as the ratification convention of 1788.^[9] As such, Elijah Craig worked with Patrick Henry and James Madison concerning protections to religious freedom in the federal and the state constitutions. Ultimately, religious freedom became protected in the First Amendment, and Baptist membership grew.^[10]

Travel to Kentucky area of Virginia

Seeking religious freedom and economic opportunity, in 1781 Elijah's brother Rev. Lewis Craig led an exodus of up to 600 people known as "The Travelling Church" (composed of most of his congregation from Spotsylvania County and others)^[11] to the area of Virginia known as Kentucky County (the largest single group to so migrate).^[12] Elijah Craig did not go with this group but followed a few years later. The emigrants included slaves held by the Craigs and others. They walked down the Great Wagon Road in the Blue Ridge Mountains through present-day Lynchburg, Roanoke and Fort Chiswell, gathering members, before joining the Wilderness Road. They crossed the Appalachians through the Cumberland Gap, and then continued north, ultimately settling in central Kentucky and establishing a church at Gilbert's Creek.^{[13][14][15][16]} In 1792, the cross-Appalachian counties separated from Virginia to form the new state of Kentucky.

When he finally emigrated in 1782, Elijah Craig purchased 1,000 acres (4.0 km²) in what was then Fayette County of Virginia, where he planned and laid out a town originally called Lebanon, which was incorporated in 1784. (In 1790 the town was renamed Georgetown in honor of Gen. Washington.)^[17] Craig preached at several churches with John Waller, and in 1786 became pastor of the Great Crossing Church which they had founded the previous year.^[18] Joseph Redding succeeded Craig in 1793 after a controversy concerning some of his economic activities, although Elijah Craig was ultimately buried next to his mother in that early church cemetery, after approximately forty years of ministry.^[19]

Elijah Craig established the first classical school in Kentucky in 1787. His advertisement in The Kentucky Gazette read:

Education. Notice is hereby given that on Monday, 28 January next, a school will be opened by Messrs. Jones and Worley, at the Royal Spring in Lebanon Town, Fayette County, where a commodious house, sufficient to contain fifty or sixty scholars, will be prepared. They will teach the Latin and Greek languages, together with such branches of the sciences as are usually taught in public seminaries, at twenty five shillings a quarter for each scholar. One half to be paid in cash, the other half in produce at cash prices. There will be a vacation of a month in the spring, and another in the fall, at the close of each of which it is expected that such payments as are due in cash will be made. For diet, washing and house room for a year, each scholar pays £3 in cash, or 500 weight of pork on entrance, and £3 cash on the beginning of the third quarter. It is desired that, as many as can, would furnish themselves with beds; such as cannot may be provided for here, to the number of eight or ten boys, at 35s a year for each bed. ELIJAH CRAIG. LEBANON, December 27, 1787.^[20]

The school was later linked to the Rittenhouse Academy, which Craig founded in 1798. Elijah Craig also donated land for the founding of Georgetown College, the first Baptist college founded west of the Allegheny Mountains, and which continues today.

Craig was a businessman and a local magnate. He built Kentucky's first fulling mill (for cloth manufacturing), its first paper mill,^[21] its first ropewalk (for manufacturing rope from hemp), and the first lumber and gristmill at Georgetown.

Distillery

In approximately 1789, Craig founded a distillery. This last enterprise led to his subsequent dubious reputation as the inventor of bourbon whiskey. Craig has sometimes been claimed to have been the first to age the distillation in charred oak casks,^[1][2][3][4] "a process that gives the bourbon its reddish color and unique taste."^[22]

Craig built his distillery in what was then Fayette County. The location later became part of Woodford County in 1789, and then Scott County in 1792.^[4][23] It was never in Bourbon County, as some have claimed.^[4][23] However, both Fayette County and Bourbon County were named in honor of the noted Revolutionary War Gen. Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, of the French nobility and royal House of Bourbon.^[23]

American whiskey authority Charles Kendrick Cowdery believes Craig was making exactly the same kind of whiskey as most of his contemporaries^[1] and historian Henry Crowgey calls his reputed invention of bourbon simply a "charming legend".^[4] By 1785, when Bourbon County was formed, dozens (if not hundreds) of small farmer-distillers west of the Alleghenies made corn-based whiskies which they called 'bourbon', to distinguish them from the rye-based whiskies commonly distilled in the East.^[23] No actual historical evidence indicates that Craig's whiskey was unique in its time, nor that he practiced charring of the aging barrels. The first known publication potentially alluding to Craig as bourbon's inventor was in 1874 (and includes only a brief entry in a densely packed list without actually mentioning Craig himself, or pointing to any evidence, and without any elaboration as to what distinguished the product as the first bourbon).^{[1][2][4][23]}

Death

Craig continued to prosper, eventually owning more than 4,000 acres (16 km²) and operating a retail store in Frankfort. He died in Georgetown in 1808. John Taylor wrote of him in A History of Ten Baptist Churches, "His preaching was of the most solemn style; his appearance as of a man who had just come from the dead; of a delicate habit, a thin visage, large eyes and mouth; the sweet melody of his voice, both in preaching and singing, bore all down before it."^[24]

The Kentucky Gazette eulogized as follows, "He possessed a mind extremely active and, as his whole property was expended in attempts to carry his plans to execution, he consequently died poor. If virtue consists in being useful to our fellow citizens, perhaps there were few more virtuous men than Mr. Craig."^[25]

Legacy

Elijah Craig's name is now used as the brand name for a Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey marketed by Heaven Hill

Craig may be most widely known for the premium bourbon that bears his name that is produced by Heaven Hill distillery.

Elijah Craig whiskey is made in both 12 "Small Batch" and 18 year-old "Single Barrel" bottlings. The 18 Year Old Single Barrel Bourbon is touted as "The oldest Single Barrel Bourbon in the world at 18 years . . ." made in oak barrels that are "hand selected by Parker and Craig Beam," losing nearly 2/3 of the barrels contents in Angel's share.^[26] The barrels are thereafter sold to the Scotch whisky industry, and for use by microbrewers in making cask-conditioned beers, such as Goose Island Brewery "Bourbon County" Imperial stout.^[27]

In the San Francisco World Spirits Competition of 2010, the 18 year-old Elijah Craig Single Barrel Bourbon was awarded Best Bourbon and a Double Gold Medal rating. In previous years, it had received a Double Gold Medal rating in 2008, a Gold Medal rating in 2004, and four silver ratings in other years (2003, 2005, 2006, and 2007).

See also

• Bardstown, Kentucky
• Heaven Hill Distillery
• Elijah Craig Bourbon

References

External links

• Elijah Craig 12-year-old Small Batch
• Elijah Craig 18-year-old Single Barrel